The present invention relates to a disk-shaped, recording medium housed in a cartridge, and a signal recording apparatus using such a cartridge.
Today""s computers and other information equipment commonly use optical disks to meet their large memory capacity requirements. A conventional optical disk cartridge is explained below with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 12 depicts a cartridge 31 housing a recording medium 32, and having an opening window 33 through which a signal can be recorded onto the medium 32 when the cartridge 31 is mounted on a signal recording apparatus. The shutter 34 closes the opening window 33. Mounting the cartridge 31 to the signal recording apparatus automatically moves the shutter 34 and exposes the opening window 33.
Since the conventional cartridge 31, housing the disk 32, must record a desired signal accurately, the disk 32 must be protected from contaminants, such as dust or fingerprints, and from other defects, such as scratches. Such a fixed-disk structure, therefore, cannot allow a user to remove the disk 32 from its cartridge and mount it to another signal regenerating apparatus. Even if the disk 32 was removable, however, the user would not be able to identify whether the disk 32 was present in the cartridge 31, nor recognize whether the disk 31 was contaminated with dust or fingerprints, or damaged by defects.
If such contamination or defects go unrecognized, the signal recording apparatus, when accessing a defective location on the disk, will record the signal in error. A signal recording apparatus can be equipped with a defect detection feature which would allow it to skip defective locations on the disk, however, such a feature reduces recording apparatus performance, and prohibits the apparatus from recording signals at high speed.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to allow a user to recognize whether the disk housed in a cartridge has been taken out of the cartridge, and the signal recording apparatus housing the cartridge can record a signal without accessing a defective place, caused when the disk was removed from the cartridge, on the disk.
The disk cartridge of the present invention is directed to a disk cartridge that allows the user to access the disk housed in the cartridge.
In one embodiment of the disk cartridge according to the present invention, a cartridge is structured such that a recording apparatus can record a signal onto a medium when the cartridge is mounted on the recording apparatus. The cartridge houses a recording medium, and includes an opening through which the medium can be removed from the cartridge. An indicator on the cartridge informs the user as to whether the recording medium may have been removed from the cartridge.
In a second embodiment of the disk cartridge of the present invention, the cartridge houses a recording medium, and comprises at least one window or opening for recording a signal onto the medium when the cartridge is mounted on the signal recording apparatus. The cartridge includes an opening through which the medium can be removed from the cartridge, a shutter which covers the opening and an indicator which informs the user as to whether the medium may have been removed from the cartridge.
The present invention further provides a signal recording apparatus that detects whether a recording medium has been removed from its cartridge. The signal recording apparatus includes a detector which monitors the indicator on the disk cartridge, and determines whether the medium has been removed from its cartridge. If the detector determines that the medium may have been removed from its cartridge, the signal recording apparatus will not record a signal onto the medium.